Arn Frag 5^III

Sæll es Sýrhallar
†seiða beinreiðar†.

… Sýrhallar es sæll … †beinreiðar seiða†.

… of Sýr’s <= Freyja’s> hall is fortunate …

Mss: 742ˣ(3ra), 1496ˣ(36r) (LaufE)

Editions: Jón Helgason 1966a, 177-8; Whaley 1998, 36-7.

Context: The couplet is cited to illustrate a heiti for Freyja, here Sýr, within a listing of heiti and kennings for goddesses.

Notes: [All]: (a) In the absence of further context, the interpretation of this couplet is highly uncertain, and even the Prose order and partial Translation above are tentative, since if the couplet is syntactically incomplete it is unclear where the missing words would belong. Some of the words in the lines chime with traditional attributes of Freyja: reiðar (gen. sg. of reið f. ‘chariot’, l. 2) could refer to her chariot drawn by two cats, and hallar (gen. sg. of hǫll f. ‘hall’, l. 1) to her fine hall Sessrúmnir (SnE 1998, I, 30; SnE 2005, 25) or Fólkvangr (Grí 14/1). However, seiða in l. 2 could be gen. pl. of seiðr ‘(magic) spell’ or of seiðr ‘saithe (pollack or coalfish)’, while bein (l. 2) could be the noun ‘bone’ or a form of the adj. beinn ‘straight, direct’. (b) Jón Helgason (1966a, 177-8) proposed the following solution, which assumes that the couplet is syntactically complete. Sýr-hǫll, it is argued, must mean ‘hall of Freyja’, and the hall-name Fólkvangr could mean ‘battle-plain’, and hence, by ofljóst, yield a shield-kenning on the pattern ‘land of battle’ (Meissner 169); the ‘coalfish’ (seiðr) of the shield is then a sword (cf. Meissner 154), and its wielder (reiðir, incorporating a slight emendation from ms. reiðar) is a warrior; bein- could qualify this, with the sense ‘straight, directly’. Hence, literally, ‘Fortunate is the straight-wielder of the fish of Freyja’s hall [= Fólkvangr (fólkvangr ‘shield’) > SWORDS > WARRIOR]’, i.e. ‘the warrior is fortunate’. This interpretation would assume that Arnórr here adopts a style uncharacteristic of him, since he does not elsewhere use ofljóst or anti-naturalistic images such as kennings depicting swords as fish. — [All]: The fragment is among additions to LaufE found in ms. 742^x (first half of C17th). The additions are of uncertain origin but are believed to have been introduced by the writer of 742^x, Björn Jónsson of Skarðsá, rather than originating in a further, now lost version of Magnús Ólafsson’s LaufE (Jón Helgason 1966a, 175; LaufE 1979, 106-7, 176). The fragment is included here among the oeuvre of Arnórr, following the ms. attributions, but there are reasons to doubt its authenticity. The couplet is not among the core material common to most mss of LaufE, and even within the shared material much is of unknown origin and of doubtful attribution. Mss 742^x and the C18th 1496^x, moreover, may not have independent value but may have obtained their common supplementary fragments from closely related exemplars (Jón Helgason 1966a, 175). Further, the Haðarlag metre, with its five-syllable line, is not otherwise used by Arnórr, and the couplet would also be stylistically anomalous if interpreted according to (b) above. — [1] sæll es ‘fortunate is’: Jón Helgason (1966a, 178) notes a skaldic parallel (Refr Frag 5/1) and a runic one (Run N 171^VI). — [1] Sýrhallar ‘of Sýr’s <= Freyja’s> hall’: If translated the name Sýr would mean ‘sow’. Snorri explains in Gylf (SnE 2005, 29) that Freyja adopted many different names when she travelled among strange peoples in search of her husband Óðr.

References

1. Bibliography
2. LaufE 1979 = Faulkes, Anthony, ed. 1979. Edda Magnúsar Ólafssonar (Laufás Edda). RSÁM 13. Vol. I of Two Versions of Snorra Edda from the 17th Century. Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, 1977-9.
3. Meissner = Meissner, Rudolf. 1921. Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur skaldischen Poetik. Rheinische Beiträge und Hülfsbücher zur germanischen Philologie und Volkskunde 1. Bonn and Leipzig: Schroeder. Rpt. 1984. Hildesheim etc.: Olms.
4. Jón Helgason. 1966a. ‘Verse aus der Laufás-Edda’. In Rudolph et al. 1966, 175-80.
5. Whaley, Diana, ed. and trans. 1998. The Poetry of Arnórr jarlaskáld: An Edition and Study. Westfield Publications in Medieval Studies 8. Turnhout: Brepols.
6. SnE 1998 = Snorri Sturluson. 1998. Edda: Skáldskaparmál. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2 vols. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
7. SnE 2005 = Snorri Sturluson. 2005. Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning. Ed. Anthony Faulkes. 2nd edn. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
8. Internal references
9. (forthcoming), ‘ Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=113> (accessed 24 April 2024)
10. Not published: do not cite ()
11. Edith Marold (ed.) 2017, ‘Hofgarða-Refr Gestsson, Fragments 5’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 264.
12. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Laufás Edda’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=10928> (accessed 24 April 2024)